Kitty home until tomorrow. We take her up to Syracuse for a breathtakingly early flight to San Francisco for her summer internship with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, where she will assist the costume designer while living at the company and being provided one meal a day and a little pocket money for this and that. Not enough to cover food...but maybe it will cover her subway tokens. An adventure none the less in a beautiful, fun city--travelling with these interesting people (the mime troupe is a political street theatre group), going to all the terrific parks in the area...So, she is going to get a big dose of interesting...with a sprinkle of special and a dollop of change. All is good on that front.

Alex is back in NYC starting his semester which seems to be right up his alley. He is spending time in the darkroom and shooting quite a bit. He is feeling a bit lonely, but has not really reached out to friends and to places he can make new acquaintances. So, maybe this will be the mother of invention (this, being loneliness)--we can hope. He has shot some 4x5 film in his new cigarbox camera that Leah kindly made for him...and he is powering through with film and digital and is talking a mile a minute at trying his hand at two and a quarter, and some big high res digital cameras they are using in his shooting class. He is cheery and chipper...and is doing stuff like walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and enjoying being in the moment.

Work is busy here. Quite a few publications on the desk...along with the finalizing of the wine project I was working on. The direction is good...and I am pushing against it (providing way beyond the scope of what was quoted) to help sell in this design which will (I know) drive sales to a product that is so quiet that it was probably missed on the shelf. No more missing now. Hello Hot Pink. Hello Orange on a blue bottle. That is exciting.

I also had a breakthrough with this beer brand refresh project I am working on. I was fighting the given asset (logo) they had, and was really walking around it during my sketch process. I finally had a moment and figured it was time to dive in, stop bitching and start making lemonade out of these here lemons. From that point on, the work has evolved and is very interesting and really solves the client's problem tastefully. Now for the rule setting. You see, the trick to this project is that the client want s funky --(not bad smelling but more "artsy?") look and feel...along with the name of the company, the location, the name of the variety, the funky (meaning smells bad) illustration/logo they currently have, and then, a signature illustration (he likes pin-ups). I have already gotten on my feminist high horse (using fancy big words like misogynistic and stuff) to point up that the world has moved on it's axis and women drink beer too. I suggested that we look at illustrations that have a point of view and are cute/funny, without being so damned old boy about the whole thing. The client is a sweet person who just does stuff cause he can...and poor man...gets a dose of me stomping around with my stinking crusades. He seems to be open to change...and seems to listen to my one man tirades....so I am blessed this way. Anyway...I finally have a handful of interesting layouts to show him so we can transition his beer from being invisible at the store, to being one of the "cool ones" that get prime space (and therefore, better sales). Believe it or not, design is definitely going to influence whether sales are going to improve or not. I am impatient to see where he lands this week. Should be interesting (for good or bad).